


Baby Blanket

by batwayneman



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Batfamily Feels, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, Other characters are mentioned but those three are the main, but also hopeful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 01:43:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19241287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batwayneman/pseuds/batwayneman
Summary: One Father’s Day, Bruce entered his study to find an envelope on his desk.





	Baby Blanket

**Author's Note:**

> I put this on tumblr years ago and figured it was high time I edited it and put it up here. Hope you enjoy!

One Father’s Day, Bruce entered his study to find an envelope on his desk. It was perfectly centred; too carefully placed to be an accident, though it had no address or name on it.

He waited until later, when the Batcave was deserted, to bring the envelope downstairs to scan it. But all the precautionary warnings came back negative, so he carefully cut into the side and let the contents fall out into his hand.

There was a single photo. It was of a baby, probably a few months old, swaddled in a colourful blanket. Under the shock of black hair, the baby’s eyes were shut tight, mouth open in a deep sleep. The little hand was clutching the blanket tightly.

Bruce sat down. He recognized the face, even as an infant. Upstairs, safe in his bed, Damian was hopefully making the same face as the one he wore in the photo.

Why had Talia – and it must have been her who left it, she was the only one who could have this photo – chosen to give this to him now? After not telling him about Damian’s existence until a few years ago, after _robbing_ him of the chance to see Damian as a baby, after allowing Damian to be trained too harshly at too young–

He took a deep breath, reeled in the immediate anger and secured it with iron bands, and forced the thoughts to come to him slower.

Damian’s face, when he had arrived at the Manor. Talia telling him in harsh whispers, “He’s your son!” while Dick and Damian met each other for the first time in the room behind them. When he met Talia for the first time, and she beat him at sparring so completely that he spent the next four months training to match her. Her helping him with his stance until he stood a chance.

Talia fighting with Ra’s.

Talia fighting with him.

The cruel sneer on Damian’s face meeting his siblings. The first time they heard him laugh, really laugh, that day Cass had surprised Dick with a face full of whipped cream, who was caught so off guard he fell to the floor. It was just like Talia's laugh the first time he had surprised her with a long forgotten joke, all those years ago.

The scars on Damian, the ones that Bruce hadn’t been around for, that he couldn’t forgive. The playful glint in Talia’s eye’s when she was teasing him. Damian calling him Father. The cracked heartbreak on Talia’s face when she had left Damian with him, promising that it was necessary, that he’d be safer this way.

Bruce took another breath. He grabbed a file protector from the top drawer and slipped the photo, the treasure, in it.

Things couldn’t ever be normal between him and Talia, with too many fractured windows and smoking bridges and good intentions in their past.

But he could still be grateful.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Leave a comment if you enjoyed, or come find me on [ Tumblr](http://batwayneman.tumblr.com)!


End file.
